Thoughts

Don’t vote in this year’s presidential election. Apparently, from what people are telling me, both real choices are awful, and I hear there are two “third party” candidates that likely won’t get enough votes to win a single state. So here’s my advice: don’t cast a vote for president. Instead, cast votes that matter. The policies that most directly affect your neighbors (you know, the people Jesus told you to love) are decided at the state and local level. For Avoca, that means Representative Mike Carroll and Senator John Blake at the state level, and Representative Matt Cartwright at the federal level – along…[Read More]

It’s not often that I get overwhelmed by the news. Maybe this week is just overwhelming for me personally, and then hearing about death on the news sends me a little over the edge. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve got so much cognitive dissonance from knowing so many good people but seeing people do such amazingly horrible things on the news and the internet. There are a lot of things to feel this week, and events are pulling us in so many different directions that it’s hard to tell how to be peacemakers in the midst of the chaos….[Read More]

Six months ago, I wasn't sure that I would ever see a coffee shop open in Avoca. Fortunately, I found someone who was willing and able to take on the role of managing this hypothetical coffee shop as a full-time job! We have an employee, a board of directors, even 501(c)(3) status. We don't yet have a building, but I hope that will change soon. I recently described the place I'm at in this process as "skiing very quickly down a steep slope." I know how to ski, and I'm doing it pretty well. It's just that, at a certain…[Read More]

When I was working as a chaplain at Seven Ranges Boy Scout summer camp, we sang a song from Will Allen Dromgoole’s poem “The Bridge Builder.” It’s the best explanation I’ve heard for working with Boy Scouts: An old man going a lone highway, Came, at the evening cold and gray, To a chasm vast and deep and wide. Through which was flowing a sullen tide The old man crossed in the twilight dim, The sullen stream had no fear for him; But he turned when safe on the other side And built a bridge to span the tide. “Old…[Read More]

It’s easy for us pastor types to get upset about singing songs out of season. For the same reason that you shouldn’t sing Easter songs on Good Friday or during Lent (“Up from the grave he arose”? Not yet!), you shouldn’t sing Christmas songs in Advent. This is theologically sound and correct. It is the way we have celebrated Christmas for generations (before mass media Christmas music consumption). So why does just about every church sing Christmas carols during Advent? I haven’t done any real research on this, but I imagine it has to do with preparation. Christmas songs are…[Read More]

The church has an important role to play in the areas of racial justice and immigrant justice. Perhaps your ministry will be multicultural and multiracial (that would be awesome), but even if it is not, the church has work do to as we work to reconcile our past, the possibility of the future and the realm of God for which we all hope. Write a reflection on the issue of cultural sensitivity, racial justice, or reconciliation and how you anticipate it will play into the work you do in a new ministry. The Northeast PA region has a long history…[Read More]

This past week I had the chance to sit down and try a project I’ve been eating to do for a while: rewrite an old, public domain science fiction story from Project Gutenberg and update it for 2015. The Stolen Mind is a story that appeared in “Amazing Science Fiction” Volume 7 in 1930, and I’ve rewritten it below. It was a fun experience for someone like me who’s never done fiction before, like writing with training wheels on, and I might try another in the future to learn more about writing fiction. The Stolen Mind By M. L. Staley …[Read More]

I serve a branch of Christianity that has lost about two thirds of its members over the past few decades, consists mostly of churches with less than 100 members, and is currently fracturing over issues such as gay marriage, LGBT ordination, and – of course – money. It’s often lambasted for being liberal and its members are called “the frozen chosen.” So why would I choose to stay within this denomination? Because there’s no place I’d rather be. There is no doubt in my mind that our denomination has been facing a crisis in its identity and how it relates…[Read More]

As comfortable as I am speaking in public (a blessing I do not take for granted!), I’m not as much a student of the art of preaching as I could be. And so, in an effort to expand my horizons, I recently started preaching in a narrative style, aiming to simply retell some of those “good old” stories. This is a little bit of a shift, because I’ve always had the temptation to drive home a big idea with every sermon. Somewhere in the back of my mind lives a little monkey telling me that every sermon has to change…[Read More]

Here’s an old exegesis of the Tower of Babel story I wrote in college: The structure of this text frames the story around action. After the introduction in verse 1, the story begins in earnest with human action, which occupies verses 2-4. God’s actions follow in verses 5-8, with an epilogue in verse 9 explaining the effects of God’s actions. When God acts, it is with such great force that humans are instantly overcome. The author simply emphasizes that God acts powerfully and finally. God’s strong actions in creating these different languages show that God clearly desired a diversity of…[Read More]